Listening to the Earth
Beyond the Horoscope
There was a time when I charted every New Moon and Full Moon, mapping my internal tides against the movements of the heavens. I drew comfort from astrology’s rich symbolism—the poetry of planetary alignments, the mythic stories written in the stars.
But slowly, quietly, something shifted.
I realised I was living too much in anticipation.
Too much in interpretation.
Not enough in the moment itself.
In our age of instant information—where a swipe or tap delivers endless analysis and forecasts—it’s easy to fall into the trap of looking outward to define our inner lives. Astrology, though beautiful, began to distance me from my own experience.
The Moon became not a companion, but a report to be read.
The days lost some of their mystery, flattened by expectation.
I’ve never called myself an astrologer. I have always taught that the stars and planets are not arbiters of fate. They are archetypal lenses—stories we can peer through to make meaning. But they are not here to dictate our lives, nor excuse our choices.
Too often, I watched astrology morph into a way to hand away responsibility:
"It’s Mercury retrograde, so of course I’m failing."
"This full moon in Scorpio is why I’m angry."
"The planets are against me, so there’s no point trying."
But no.
We are sovereign.
We are the ones who choose.
The stars may offer us metaphors and mirrors, but they do not steer our hands or shape our hearts.
In stepping back from astrology, I didn’t abandon reverence for the Moon.
Rather, I returned to a deeper, older relationship with it—one rooted in the Earth itself.
Long before modern astrology, the Moon was honoured as a timekeeper of life.
The rhythms of sowing, harvesting, hunting, birthing, and resting were guided by her wax and wane. She was not read for personality forecasts or cosmic warnings. She was a living presence woven into daily existence.
In old European folk traditions, the phases of the Moon shaped the entire agricultural calendar:
- New Moon was the time to plant seeds that needed to grow underground—roots, tubers, foundations.
- Waxing Moon was for growth and expansion—sowing, grafting, beginning.
- Full Moon was a time of potency—harvests, blessings, rites of fertility and marriage.
- Waning Moon was for release—pruning, weeding, cutting back what no longer served.
In these traditions, the Moon was part of the song of the seasons, the slow turning of the year, the intimate dance between light and dark. There was no fear of the Moon’s changes—only a deep trust in the necessary ebb and flow of life itself.
This way of living honours the Moon not as an event to be analysed, but as a rhythm to be felt in the body, in the land, in the heart.
This is the way I choose now.
I mark the turning of the seasons—the Equinox, the Solstice, the Cross-Quarter Days—not because the stars tell me to, but because the Earth shows me:
in the way the shadows lengthen,
in the scent of ripening fruit,
in the hush of the trees when the winds shift.
I feel the Moon not as a prediction, but as a pulse, a breath, a tide.
I teach my daughters the same.
When they ask if they can check the weather on my phone, I say,
"Go outside instead. Look up. Feel the air. Smell the ground. Close your eyes. Let your skin tell you what you need to know."
Only recently, my eldest—nearly thirteen—looked at me with a glimmer of understanding and said,
"I get it now. Because if we always rely on someone else to tell us how things are, we never learn how to feel it for ourselves."
Yes, my girl. Yes.
Because the Earth speaks differently to each of us.
No two cheeks feel the same wind.
No two souls interpret the same sky in exactly the same way.
The stars may offer us metaphors and mirrors, but they do not steer our hands or shape our hearts.
In the old days, folklore taught us how to listen:
- To plant parsley only on Good Friday.
- To harvest on a waning moon for longer-lasting crops.
- To bury an apple at the base of a tree at Samhain to bless the land for the year ahead.
- To honour the Full Moon with a silent prayer of gratitude, not a written list of desires.
These weren’t rules for manifesting; they were ways of being in conversation with a living world.
A world we were not above or separate from, but utterly entwined with.
True knowing rises not from a forecast, but from a life fully lived.
The Moon remains a wonder to me.
I still bow to her beauty when she hangs golden and low on the horizon.
I still feel her tug at my blood.
I still light candles and set intentions, but not because a forecast tells me to—
because it feels right. Because I am listening.
We are not made to live by charts alone.
We are made to live.
To feel the seasons inside our bones.
To experience the wind against our skin.
To honour the quiet voice of the Earth rising up to meet us, if only we are willing to listen.
The stars are a beautiful story.
The Earth is the living page we write our lives upon.
May we learn again to trust what we feel.
May we remember that true knowing rises not from a forecast, but from a life fully lived.